The T-Shirt
by deleashousness
Summary: When on the run from HYDRA, Natasha impulse buys a new t-shirt. It may or may not become her favorite. A look through Natasha Romanoff's eyes at the events from TWS to CW. Not totally canon compliant. Romanogers.


I don't own the Avengers. Any dialogue that seems familiar was borrowed from the Captain American movies.

She's not quite sure what possessed her to buy it. It was a waste of money really. It had caught her eye as they were getting street clothes when they were running from SHIELD. Steve had been in the dressing room hastily putting on the clothes she had picked out for him, and she was in the women's department grabbing something for herself. It was on the clearance rack and at first looked to be nothing but an average navy-blue t-shirt. But when she pulled it off the rack, she was greeted by a familiar shield, and had to roll her eyes at the trendiness of the weapon that had saved her life so many times in the short period that she had known its owner. She definitely couldn't wear this now. It would be way too conspicuous. There was no way, however, that she was putting it back on the rack. So before she could overthink it, she rushed over to the register with the other items she had grabbed and paid before ducking into one of the changing rooms.

When she left the room, Steve was waiting for her. He arched his eyebrow inquisitively at the bag in her hand, but she shrugged it off with a small smirk and made some comment about playing the part. Without any more discussion, they headed out the door to find a place to look at the flash drive from Fury.

Despite the seriousness of the mission, Natasha couldn't help but smirk at the thought of the shirt in her bag. She wasn't sure when, or if, she would ever wear it. She thinks it would a fun way to fluster the poor Captain, which is something she already excels at. Which might be a tiny part of the reason why, when approached by the store employee, she decides to pull out the fiancée card. To his credit, Steve assumes the role _almost _believably. She can't help the smile on her face as he tried to figure out how to act as a fiancée. Before long, they have a destination and they start to make their way out of the mall. And then they're on an escalator and Natasha is telling Steve to _kiss her_ because it will make people look away. But then he's kissing her. It's short, and unsure, and definitely just to protect their cover, but when she pulls away and asks him if he's still uncomfortable, he tells her that's not the word he would use. She doesn't have the time, nor the desire really, to push the conversation any further at the moment, but when she looks back at it later, she would mark that moment, and everything else that happened that day, as a defining one in their friendship.

After burning all her covers when uncovering HYDRA, Natasha decided to disappear for a while. It's not the same as it used to be before the Avengers. She used to be just fine on her own, but at some point, she had started to do something that she never in a million years would have expected from herself; she had started to trust. So after a few months of travelling several countries in an attempt to find herself, she ended up standing in front of the Barton's door, hesitating before deciding to knock.

It was Laura who answered, smiling brightly and inviting her into the house as the kids came to investigate. They were thrilled to see their Auntie Nat, who was equally glad to see them. Laura, sensing that the former spy needed a place to stay, asked Natasha if she would like to use the guest room that she had been in last time. She readily agreed and ran up the stairs to put down her things and take a shower.

As she stood under the water, Natasha allowed herself to begin to relax. This was hardly the first time she had crashed at the Barton home unexpectedly, and it would not be the last. A part of her was hoping that she would be able to stay for a few months because Laura was pregnant, and Natasha knew she would appreciate the help with the older two as the pregnancy progressed. She herself would never be the family type, it went against all of her training, but she loved being Auntie Nat, and was hoping that the next baby would be a little Natasha.

Feeling the water temperature begin to cool, Natasha jumped out of the shower and walked back into the bedroom to grab something to wear. As she dug through her bag, she realized most of her clothes were in desperate need of washing. She managed to find a pair of jeans that weren't too bad, but she wasn't finding any tops. Finally, after dumping the entire bag onto the bed, she found her last clean shirt and couldn't help the grin that crept onto her face. She slipped the shirt over her head and couldn't help but realize how soft it was. This one was definitely her new favorite, and it certainly had nothing to do with the red, white, and blue shield decorating the front of it.

She slipped down the stairs, grinning as she heard Clint's voice talking to Laura in the kitchen. It had been too long since she had seen her best friend. As they came into view, Clint looked bemusedly at her attire, a somewhat knowing look in his eyes.

"Nice shirt Nat." She rolled her eyes at him and replied with a shrug,

"Everything else was dirty."

Life had settled into a routine for Natasha. She played with the kids, helped Clint with various home renovation projects, and did whatever she could to help Laura out. She knew that it wouldn't last forever, it never did, but she liked the normalcy of it, even if she got a bit stir-crazy from time to time. The odd, if not slightly frustrating part of it, was that Steve wasn't around. She hadn't realized how much she had enjoyed his company in the time that they were partners at SHIELD. A part of her wished that she had gone with him and Sam in pursuit of the Winter Soldier, but she had made a choice, and that was that. It was not her mission.

It wasn't that she didn't have any contact with Steve. She did. She would text him every once in a while to check in, to make sure that he was doing okay. He would typically call her back, claiming that there was nothing wrong with talking on the phone. She secretly loved this because she got to hear his voice. He would ask here where she was, and she would tell him that she was safe, because she knew Clint wasn't ready for anyone to know about his family. Those conversations with Steve lasted anywhere from minutes to hours and they talked about everything and nothing. He would tell her his frustration with the hunt, and with sharing small spaces with Sam. And she would listen and laugh, adding jokes here and there about what an old man he was. She felt at peace when she talked to him.

The normalcy of her world came crashing down when the Avengers were called in for a mission involving HYDRA and a lead on Loki's scepter. And just like that, she was back into the thick of the fight, listening to her boys over the comms as they did their jobs. When Steve chastised Tony over the comms for his language, she almost laughed out loud as a feeling of homecoming washed over her. It may not be much, this life she was living, but it was enough.

Then the Maximoff girl showed her the Red Room, and Natasha felt something inside of her break. She had tried so hard to distance herself from her past, and she had almost succeeded in convincing herself that none of it had been real, but it had. She was a monster.

The jet was silent as Clint flew them to the farm. Natasha wasn't sure that she wanted to go back, she didn't want Laura and the kids to deal with her when she was like this. But then Lila was asking for her Auntie Nat and jumping into her arms. She looked around the room as she was clutching the small child, and locked eyes with Steve. There was a soft smile on his face, even though his eyes looked far away, dealing with his own visions. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to take a deep breath.

After throwing her clothes into the laundry she walked out to the front porch and observed Steve and Tony chopping wood. It was laughable how much bigger of a pile the super soldier had compared to Stark. She closed her eyes and felt the slight breeze caress her skin as she listened to the laughter of the Barton kids as they acquainted themselves with the Avengers. Then she felt a presence next to her.

"Hey." Steve's voice betrayed just how shaken he had been by what he had been shown.

"Hey." She wasn't sure if she wanted to talk right now, she knew that he had a way of making things feel better, and she wanted to wallow in self-pity for a bit. But he started talking anyways.

"Is this where you were?" The question threw her. She had imagined that he would ask about her vision. She laughed,

"Yeah. I've known about Clint's family just about as long as I've known him. Laura basically adopted me into the family, and I've known the kids since they were babies. It's nice, you know? They don't see the Widow when they look at me. They just see their cool Auntie Nat. It won't last forever and someday they'll probably hate me, but it's nice for now." Steve's face contorted into a frown at her words.

"There's no way that those kids could ever hate you. There's no chance that any one of us could hate you. You know that right? What you did in the past is nothing compared to what you are doing now. You're a good person Nat. One of my favorites actually." She felt a lump form in her throat and tears begin to form in her eyes. This is exactly why she didn't want to talk to him. So she decided to go for humor.

"Only _one_ of your favorites? I'm insulted Rogers. I should clearly be the number one." The comment made him laugh, a real laugh too. One where he threw his head back and his eyes sparkled with mirth.

"We'll see Romanoff, we'll see." Before Natasha could ask what that meant, Cooper and Lila ran up asking Steve if he could show them his shield. Natasha could have stayed in that moment forever, standing on the Bartons' porch with Steve, but they had a battle to fight.

Natasha wasn't sure what life looked like after the end of Ultron. As much as she loved the Bartons, it didn't feel right for her to go back. Little Nathaniel had been born, and it was time for them to adjust to being a family of five. She knew that she would just feel like an outsider. So when the opportunity to live at the facility and train the new recruits alongside Steve came up, she ran with it. She was excited to take on this new challenge, and it felt a lot like old times.

She and Steve fell back into their role as partners and trainers easily. Steve was loud and encouraging, where Natasha was quiet and reserved. She handled fighting technique, where he did toning, conditioning, and team building. Where she struggled, he excelled, and vice versa. She loved having a partner that she could rely on.

It wasn't long before the new avengers were running missions. They typically didn't all go at the same time, but Steve or Natasha would always go no matter what, so that they could oversee and give pointers. One of these missions took Steve, Sam, and Vision out of the country for a month and Natasha couldn't help but feel like it was much too quiet at the facility. She, Wanda, and sometimes Rhodey would still train daily, and in the evenings, Natasha would find ways to occupy her time.

One night, Natasha was going over some files from an old case she and Steve had worked for SHIELD, when she decided to grab some tea from the kitchen. As she was waiting for the kettle to boil, Wanda walked into the room. She smiled at Natasha and grabbed some cereal from the cupboard.

"You must miss him." The statement confused Natasha, and the look must have shown on her face because Wanda vaguely gestured to Natasha's shirt. A small blush rose to the spy's cheeks as she realized that she was wearing her Captain America shirt.

"Oh. It's not what you think. This shirt's just really comfortable and…" She shrugged. She typically didn't wear the shirt around the compound because something about it just seemed private. When she had bought it, she was looking for a way to get a rise out of Steve, and she had never found the opportunity, and at this point it just felt like a lot to explain. Wanda cleared her throat.

"They shouldn't be gone for much longer should they?" Natasha wished that she could confidently answer the girl's question, but she didn't really know the answer.

"Hopefully. I think I'm done with reports for tonight. Do you want to watch a movie or something?" Wanda smiled and nodded her head. They both fell asleep on the couch that night after a strange mix of action movies and rom coms, waiting for their team to come home.

It was the end, or at least it felt like it. This family that she had built, this life she had chosen, was falling apart around her. She was standing at an airport in Berlin facing Steve, facing Clint, and realizing that she made a grave mistake. How could she have been so stupid? It should have been enough for her that Clint had said he didn't like the accords, but how had she ever gotten on the opposite side of Steve in this? They were partners, friends, confidants, and lately, maybe even something more. And here she was ruining it.

So when it was just her standing between Steve and the jet, she made her choice and she took out the king of Wakanda so that Steve and Bucky could continue their mission. That night, she sat in her hotel room, wearing that stupid Captain America t-shirt that had somehow made its way into her bag, and cried. She cried for Rhodey, who could lose everything, for Steve, who could never catch a break, for Tony, who was just trying to do what was right, and for her friends who were caught and imprisoned. This was ugly. She had called Laura earlier that night over a secured line, and they had cried together, not knowing where Clint was or when he would be back. She fell into a fitful sleep that night, but woke up the next morning determined to be as emotionless as she was trained to be.

But when Tony told her that he knew, and Ross knew, that she had let Steve go, it was a freeing moment. She had her way out. She could leave, and so she did. She packed a bag, and she left.

It didn't take her long to find Steve. He was in Wakanda with Bucky, who had decided he wanted to be put back into cryo until he could get the Winter Soldier out of his head. Natasha could tell that Steve was devastated by the decision. He had worked so hard and burned so many bridges to save his oldest friend, and now it all seemed useless. But he couldn't change his friend's mind. After Bucky went under, she and Steve focused on making a plan to bust their friends out of the Raft. It was going to take quite a lot of planning, but they had nothing but time.

One night, they were up late planning when Steve started to tell Natasha about what had happened between him and Tony in Siberia.

"I, I thought I was going to kill him Nat. It was only for a second, but it would have been so easy to bring the shield down on his head. But I stopped myself at the last minute." Her heart went out to him. She didn't know what to say so she held his hand and let him talk. "After it was over, I started to walk away, but he told me that I didn't deserve the shield because Howard had made it, and I just couldn't. So I dropped it."

She knew how much the shield meant to him. It had been with him almost since the beginning and it was a part of him. It was protection, a weapon, a friend, a connection. And with a start, she realized that it was all those things to her as well. _He _was all of those things, and more, to her. The realization took her breath away. But now wasn't the time for her to be having these realizations, especially with Steve sitting right across from her, looking so broken. So she grabbed his hand, making him look at her.

"What does that mean for you? Are you done?" The question terrified her almost as much as it seemed to terrify him.

"I don't think so Nat. But this world is so much different than the one that Captain America was created for. Maybe it's time for something new. I don't know." His blue eyes were far away in this moment and they sat in silence contemplating what the future would be.

It was a few weeks after rescuing their friends from the Raft when it happened. They were back in Wakanda for what they were hoping would only be a couple of weeks before heading out. They didn't want to stay in one place for too long. It was just Steve, Sam, Wanda, and herself left. Clint and Scott had made a deal with Ross to be under house arrest so that they could be with their families. While Natasha knew that it would be good for them, she would miss seeing Clint around.

They were having a quiet day, packing and planning. Natasha had taken the opportunity to sleep in for once in her life. When she woke up, she stumbled into the kitchen where the rest of their team was having lunch, and all conversation slowed to a stop. Wanda was looking at her with wide eyes, Sam with a smirk on his face. Then her gaze drifted to Steve, who was gaping at her looking like a fish out of water. And then it dawned on her. She had worn _the_ shirt to bed last night. She now had a choice to make, and the way Steve was looking at her, with so much awe and surprise, made the decision for her. She smirked,

"Shut your mouth Captain. And my eyes? They're up here." As she said this, she walked closer to him and nudged his jaw so that blue eyes met green. A blush had risen on his cheeks, but after a second, he smirked back at her before reaching up and cupping her face in his hand.

"Nat" he whispered before closing the gap between them.

She wished that he had seen her in that shirt months ago.


End file.
